Molecular breeding of lignocellulose towards biorefinery

木质素是植物细胞壁的重要组成部分，但它不是一种储存材料。这些特性对用于生物炼制的木质纤维素多糖的酶解存在障碍。在此，我们确定了控制次级细胞壁形成的因子，并操纵编码这些因子的基因的表达。对获得的转基因植株的分析表明，它们的木质素含量较低，木质素的结构和数量对酶的糖化效率有很大影响。这为未来生物炼制用木质纤维素材料的分子育种提供了有用的信息。

Lignin is an essential component of plant cell walls, but it is not a storage material. The characteristics present obstacles to enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic polysaccharides for biorefinery. Herein, we identified factors that control secondary cell wall formation and manipulated expression of genes encoding the factors. Analysis of the transgenic plants thus obtained indicated that they had lower lignin contents and thatthe lignin structures and amounts affected largely the enzymatic saccharification efficiency. This provides useful information on future molecular breeding of lignocellulosic materials for biorefinery.